New Audrey Hepburn Commercial – Creepy or Cool?

A new Audrey Hepburn commercial has been release. She is back in a new commercial for Dove Chocolate in CGI form (Computer Generated Imagery). Dove had hired visual effects studio, Framestore to work on the CGI. However, get this…

The New Audrey Hepburn Commercial took over a year of work to complete the 60 seconds of video!

HOWEVER… the question is, is this disrespectful? Creepy? Well… she is dead. What will her CGI resurrected self going to sell next? Hanes T-shirts? Maybe frosted flakes?

Now for those who are screaming that Dove is abusing and exploiting her image, they did have consent from her estate (Lucca and Sean) to use her image. And according to Sean, Audrey always had one piece of dark chocolate to treat herself. The commercial shows her eating two, at least get it right guys! 😉

Anyways, I still think it’s creepy! But in a cool way… I have very mixed feeling about it. You be the judge.

Watch the Audrey Hepburn commercial and let me know what you think.

Read further down if you’re interested in the CGI process.

The Making of CGI Audrey

Below is an excerpt from the CGI company Framestore explaining the time intensive process they went through to create such a stunning commercial.

[quote_box_center]The process started with an exhaustive search for the perfect Audrey Hepburn double. The hope was to find someone who could give [director Daniel] Kleinman the performance that he needed, and ideally to share as many of her features and characteristics as possible. Framestore then completed a round of extensive pre-shoot facial scanning at its in-house Capture Lab in order to deliver the complexities demanded by this project. This included a FACS (facial action coding system) session that allowed the team to record more than 70 possible muscle movements and capture high resolution textures for building their CG Audrey.

After the shoot, Framestore set about building a facial rig using the FACS head scans as reference for themultitude of shapes the human face can achieve. For each of these shapes, combinations had to be carefully created to allow the face to blend convincingly between expressions during the animation process, which was pivotal to authentically reconstructing the actress’s face. Facial scanning usually provides exact shapes of the person who needs to be recreated, but in this instance, the scans only provided a template based on the double who, although she looked similar to Audrey Hepburn, was nonetheless a different person with different nuances.

The 3D team built the model of Hepburn, making use of the star’s entire feature film catalogue, plus all available press and documentary photographs as reference.

However, as there was no technical lens information or measurements available for such old footage, it was quite an inexact science, involving tirelessly tweaking to refine the model from every possible angle.

The biggest challenges in recreating an authentic and unmistakable Audrey Hepburn proved to be the eyes and smile. Although the actress was cast for her eyes, and originally the team had hoped to use the real eyes and build the CG face around them, as post-production progressed it became clear that recognition was key to the success of this ad and, close though the actress was, full CG was the only way to get it right.[/quote_box_center]

My name is Melissa. I like things that sparkle. I am a sucker for chocolate chip cookies. The best time of day is twilight. When I wake up, I always manage to have one sock on, while the other sock somehow vanishes - never to be seen again!

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I have loved Audrey Hepburn ever since I was a kid growing up. It wasn't until later on in life, with my life struggles, that I grew so much more admiration for Audrey. She is the epitome of lovely, graceful, charming, and most of all kind. She is what I strive to be as a person. She has been such a great role model to me and countless other girls around the world in all shapes and sizes. This is website is my dedication to her and the hope and inspiration she still provides everyone today. Thank you Audrey.